Hugo Chavez passes away

[chinchekked]

President of Venezuela died at the age of 58 from cancer. He was cheered by many and reviled by many so I'm sure opinions of him will vary. I'm curious as to what the official White House statement will be. Anyway, condolences to his family.

[Gandalf]

Chavez did a lot for the less well off within his society. He wasn't perfect, but for a contemporary politician, there was a lot to respect. Chavez was a saint in comparison to the likes of Bush, Putin, Kim Jong-il et al. South America is all the poorer for his loss.

[El Kabong]

Hugo Chavez was a paper tiger, he would rattle his little toy saber to look like a big man to his people (oooh scary scary ) but he was just a punk. He loved the United States because we bought their oil and no matter what he THOUGHT he was going to do he knew that it was a good thing to not piss us off too much.

As for his governing , I assume miles will champion the guy as some sort of awesome dude that helped the poor. And I assume that because miles would champion anyone that speaks ill of the United States as miles is a hateful dick and that's about it. Under Chavez the middle class fled Venezuela like rats off a sinking ship. In 2011 the intentional homicide rate per 100,000 population was 45.1 compared with 25.0 just twelve years earlier ...double digit inflation is hitting that country hard now as well.

[Kirkland Laing]

Chavez changed the face of Venezuela. Before Chavez it was a banana republic with oil. The economy, the land and the oil had been owned and run by a small roup of families. Chavez gave huge chunks of the land to the people, brought electricity, education and healthcare to millions who didn't have it before and basically was the first guy to share Venezuela's oil wealth with the people.

Venezuela isn't perfect and Chavez didn't solve its problems but it was never going to go from banana republic to Switzerland in a few years. The energy boom brought huge wealth to Venezuela and it went from already having the highest murder rate in the world to an even higher one, but inflation has been really low at times depite the petrodollars and is still lower than when Chavez took office. But hey, the guy changed the face of the country. It'll never be the same again.

[El Kabong]

I'm surprised if miles & Kirkland aren't openly weeping as Chavez was a socialist & hated the Jews & Israel

[El Kabong]

Chavez lead a country rich with natural resources and NEVER improved it. Think of the oil the United States bought from Venezuela, you would assume that the kind of money needed to buy what America needs would be substantial but did the poor people that Hugo championed benefit from Chavez's dictatorship?

NO

27.4% of the people live below the poverty line (2012)
26.1% Inflation (2012)
-4.9% of GDP budget deficet (2011) and grew to about -5.2% of GDP in 2012 despite record oil prices.

Meanwhile Chavez leaves his family an estate valued at around 2 Billion dollars....yes, champion the poor & line your own pockets. Just another 2 bit thug dictator

[bradlee180]

Rest in Peace, he was a Great Man and beloved Leader of his people which is why their entire nation will mourn for days to come, and will always revere and remember him. He wouldn't be bullied by the Americans is all, so in America, the gov't-controlled media will put their spin on his reign.

[El Kabong]

The media is liberal and they are mourning him....he was a despot plain and simple

[TitoFan]

Hugo Chavez was a paper tiger, he would rattle his little toy saber to look like a big man to his people (oooh scary scary ) but he was just a punk. He loved the United States because we bought their oil and no matter what he THOUGHT he was going to do he knew that it was a good thing to not piss us off too much.

As for his governing , I assume miles will champion the guy as some sort of awesome dude that helped the poor. And I assume that because miles would champion anyone that speaks ill of the United States as miles is a hateful dick and that's about it. Under Chavez the middle class fled Venezuela like rats off a sinking ship. In 2011 the intentional homicide rate per 100,000 population was 45.1 compared with 25.0 just twelve years earlier ...double digit inflation is hitting that country hard now as well.

I believe in being open-minded and.... I may not agree with Lyle on a lot of things.... but I can personally vouch for this statement. I've personally known many middle-class and professional Venezuelans who have left everything behind while fleeing the Chavez government. Many have relocated to Puerto Rico, where we speak the same language (Spanish), and exist under the American system. What better measure of a leader's worth than the opinion of his own people?

Chavez may have brought a measure of prosperity to Venezuela, but he was a loose cannon. What was even worse... he very much "discouraged" political opposition, if you know what I mean.

Chavez's only redeeming quality was that he hated George Bush.
But other than that, there were definitely more minuses than pluses.

[El Kabong]

He "hated" Bush but still took American money.


Chavez ripped off the poor while he grew rich SAYING he would help them....terrible person and I'm happy he's dead

[Gandalf]

Most would dislike a US political elite who attempted to have them murdered which was exactly the script as it has been for so many leaders globally who have had the audacity to disagree with Washington. That is what made him truly turn his back. Of course, most Americans have no idea about what their country really gets up to as they live in bloated ignorance.

Oil is a commodity and you sell it to anyone and if you redistribute some of that wealth then that is a good thing. I find it absurd that an American person can talk about wealth inequality. Are you fucking kidding me? You have a half a nation on food stamps and a corrupt corporate and financial sector free from prosecution. Oh, but Chavez is evil personified! Homicides are through the roof too they say. So America is clearly a saintly place with no murder issues and everyone has a level playing field. I'm glad we are clear on that.

People will mourn the loss of Chavez, wait to see how many mourn the passing of Bush and Blair. These blowhard wobbly arses are disgusting. Everything else is wrong and their own ways are surely better than any alternatives and yet they themselves are sinking through the floor like the Bush's in Florida.

[Mars_ax]

President of Venezuela died at the age of 58 from cancer. He was cheered by many and reviled by many so I'm sure opinions of him will vary. I'm curious as to what the official White House statement will be. Anyway, condolences to his family.

Chavez just seemed like a fucking buffoon to me, isn't Venezuela still pretty much a poor, 3rd world nation despite it's huge oil reserves?
As for what the White House will say, i'm sure it will be some glittery diplomatic horseshit, Obama is a socialist cut from the same cloth as Chavez.

[Kirkland Laing]

Venezuela under Chavez :


Mark Weisbrot of CEPR points out that real GDP per capita in Venezuela expanded by 24 percent since 2004. In the 20 years prior to Chávez, real GDP per person actually fell. Venezuela has low foreign public debt, about 28 percent of GDP, and the interest on it is only 2 percent of GDP. Weisbrot writes: "From 2004-2011, extreme poverty was reduced by about two-thirds. Poverty was reduced by about one-half, and this measures only cash income. It does not count the access to health care that millions now have, or the doubling of college enrollment - with free tuition for many. Access to public pensions tripled. Unemployment is half of what it was when Chávez took office." Venezuela has reduced unemployment from 20 percent to 7 percent.
Venezuela is making rapid progress on other measures too. It has a high human development index and a low and shrinking index of inequality. Wealth inequality in Venezuela is half of what it is in the United States. It is rated "the fifth-happiest nation in the world" by Gallup. And Pepe Escobar writes that,"No less than 22 public universities were built in the past 10 years. The number of teachers went from 65,000 to 350,000. Illiteracy has been eradicated. There is an ongoing agrarian reform." Venezuela has undertaken significant steps to build food security through land reform and government assistance. New homes are being built, health clinics are opening in underserved areas and cooperatives for agriculture and business are growing.
Venezuelans are very happy with their democracy. On average, they gave their own democracy a score of seven out of ten while the Latin American average was 5.8. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Venezuelans reported being happy with their democracy compared to an average for Latin American countries of 38 percent, according to a poll conducted by Latinobarometro. While 81 percent voted in the last Venezuelan election, only 57.5 percent voted in the recent US election.


This is worth reading to give you an idea of what the country was like before Chavez, peace be upon him, took power.


http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1...tury-democracy




Let's not forget Chavez was a democratically-elected leader and was returned to power several times with massive majorities. The only reason Americans have even heard of him (who is President of Ecuador wothout googling? Yeah) is because he booted US oil companies out of the country because they were paying buttons for the oil via contracts they'd negotiated with previous corrupt leaders.


October 19, 2006 00:04 EDT

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's plan to take control of oil production joint ventures run by Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips may lead to defaults on $1.6 billion in bonds.



[.]


Chavez has already changed the terms of agreements that cover the four ventures located in the Orinoco Belt, where crude is extracted from deposits of heavy oil. In October 2004, he raised their royalty rates to 16.66 percent from 1 percent. The fee was raised again this year, to 33.3 percent. The four will also face a higher income tax rate of 50 percent starting Jan. 1, up from 34 percent.


Chavez Risks $1.6 Billion Bond Default in Oil Venture Takeovers - Bloomberg












So American oil companies wanted Chavez gone and the liberal US media started the job, turning an ioncredibly popular democratically elected lesder into a dictator. I'm surprised that during the Bush administration we didn't discover he had weapons of mass destruction.

[Mars_ax]

@Kirkland Laing,

If I could, i'd piss on Chavez' grave, as well as any other South American anti-American dictator. What makes Chavez any different from Cuba's Castro, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or any other sworn enemy of the U.S?

[El Kabong]

@Kirkland Laing,

If I could, i'd piss on Chavez' grave, as well as any other South American anti-American dictator. What makes Chavez any different from Cuba's Castro, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or any other sworn enemy of the U.S?

...ummm he "wanted to help the poor" ...DUH! it's completely erroneous that the man simply pocketed the cash from nationalizing oil fields, he wanted to help the poor.....he had good intentions man...and by God that counts for something eh comrade?